Tuesday, 28 July 2015

1) On his first trip to Kenya the airline lost his bag

"The
first time I came to Kenya, things were a little different. When I
arrived at Kenyatta Airport, the airline lost my bags. That doesn't
happen on Air Force One. They always have my luggage on Air Force One.
"Auma
[his half-sister] picked me up in an old Volkswagen Beetle, and think
the entire stay I was here it broke down four or five times."Read more in President Obama's speech to Kenyan people

3) His grandfather was a cook for the British army

"I
found the passbook he had had to carry as a domestic servant. It
listed his age and his height, his tribe, listed the number of teeth he
had missing. And he was referred to as a 'boy', even though he was a
grown man, in that passbook.
"And he was in the King's African
Rifles during the Second World War, and was taken to the far reaches of
the British Empire - all the way to Burma. And back home after the war,
he was eventually detained for a time because he was linked to a group
that opposed British rule...
"A young, ambitious Kenyan today should not have to do what my grandfather did, and serve a foreign master." Read more in President Obama's speech to Kenyan people

4) He gave health tips to Kenya's president

"We
see the legacy of Kip Keino every time a Kenyan wins one of our
marathons. And maybe the first lady of Kenya is going to win one soon.
I told the president he has to start running with his wife. We want
him to stay fit."Read more in President Obama's speech to Kenyan people

5) He's slow at texting but thinks mobiles are the future

"Through
these technological platforms, what might have previously required huge
investments of capital, and as a consequence, big barriers to entry,
now you can get a start-up moving, and if it's the right idea, it can
travel with the speed of how fast you can text.
"I can't text very fast...
"Every
day around the world, millions of people send and save money with [the
Kenyan mobile money transfer service] M-Pesa... From Zimbabwe to
Bangladesh, citizens work to keep elections safe, using the
crowd-sourcing platform Ushahidi - and that's a great idea that started
right here in Kenya."Read more of President Obama's speech at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit

7) His Power Africa project, launched in 2013, has not generated any electricity yet

"I noted that there was an article in a US publication
suggesting, well, there's no electricity being generated from this yet.
The next time somebody is interested in how electricity gets generated,
go back home and find out how long it takes to build a power plant.
"I
mean, sometimes these are long-term projects, but we have billions of
dollars of transactions already locked in, and billions more in the
pipeline."Read more of President Obama's press conference with President Kenyatta

8) He said corruption costs thousands of jobs

"Across
the country, one study shows corruption costs Kenyans 250,000 jobs
every year - because every shilling that's paid as a bribe could be put
into the pocket of somebody who's actually doing an honest day's work."
"My
hometown of Chicago was infamous for Al Capone and the mob and
organised crime corrupting law enforcement. But what happened was that
over time people got fed up, and leaders stood up and they said, we're
not going to play that game anymore."Read more in President Obama's speech to Kenyan people

9) He said women were "powerhouse entrepreneurs"

"Any
nation that fails to educate its girls or employ its women and allowing
them to maximize their potential is doomed to fall behind in a global
economy.
"You know, we're in a sports centre. Imagine if you
have a team and you don't let half of the team play. That's stupid. That
makes no sense. And the evidence shows that communities that give their
daughters the same opportunities as their sons, they are more peaceful,
they are more prosperous, they develop faster, they are more likely to
succeed."Read more in President Obama's speech to Kenyan people

10) He sees a lottery of birth in Kenya

"A
young child in Nyanza Province is four times more likely to die than a
child in Central Province - even though they are equal in dignity and
the eyes of God. That's a gap that has to be closed.
"A girl in
Rift Valley is far less likely to attend secondary school than a girl in
Nairobi. That's a gap that has to be closed."Read more in President Obama's speech to Kenyan people

11) He links good driving and gay rights

"If
somebody is a law-abiding citizen who is going about their business,
and working in a job, an obeying the traffic signs - and doing all the
other things that good citizens are supposed to do, and not harming
anybody - the idea that they are going to be treated differently or
abused because of who they love is wrong. Full stop."Read more of President Obama's press conference with President Kenyatta

12) He thinks Kenya is "on the move"

"When
I came here as a US senator, I pointed out that South Korea's economy
was the same as Kenya's when I was born, and then was 40 times larger
than Kenya's. Think about that. It started at the same place - South
Korea had gone here, and Kenya was here. But today, that gap has been
cut in half just in the last decade. Which means Kenya is making
progress."